Wayne Booth, 20, of Dover Street, Runcorn, has been sent to a young offenders institution after trying to evade police in a stolen BMW X1.

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A MOTOR menace from Runcorn tried to outrun police in a stolen BMW X1 worth £20,000 because he wanted ‘to sell it for £500’, a court heard.

Wayne Booth, 20, of Dover Street, was driving the luxury car on Dundalk Road in Widnes shortly after midnight on March 17 when a patrolling officer’s automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system spotted the vehicle, which had been taken during a burglary in Runcorn two days before.

Matthew Dunford, prosecuting, said Booth sped off and evaded the constable by driving dangerously through red lights and round the wrong way on a roundabout, reaching a speed of ‘well over’ 60mph in 30 zone during the pursuit.

The officer lost the X1 but it resurfaced at 1.10am on Gorsey Lane in Warrington.

Police stopped the vehicle and Booth made a ‘full and frank admission’, revealing that he ‘bought the car for £200’, knew it was stolen and intended to sell it on for a profit at £500.

Booth said he had taken it out at night for a test drive and had planned to evade any pursuit by travelling across constabulary boundaries.

A small amount of cannabis was found on him resulting in a possession charge along with dangerous driving, driving without insurance and not under the terms of a licence and handling stolen goods.

Wayne Booth, 20.

Chester Crown Court heard on Monday that the defendant had past convictions for theft, aggravated vehicle taking and a racially aggravated Section 5 public order offence – for which he was yet to finish his community order punishment when the BMW X1 chase took place.

Nicholas Williams, defending, said the roads were quiet at night, that his client ‘could not have pleaded guilty any earlier’ and had an apprenticeship with LaFarge Tarmac that would be kept for Booth for no longer than 12 weeks from that start of his time in custody.

Judge Raj Shetty, presiding, slapped him with 12 months in a young offenders institution for dangerous driving, two months consecutive for handling stolen goods and no further penalties for the other charges other than disqualifying him from driving for a year.

Sentencing Booth, Judge Shetty said: “You were subject to a community order by the magistrates in September 2014 and the circumstances are you decided to buy a high-value motor car, a BMW X1, for £200 when it was worth around 200 times that.

“When the police were onto you, you drove dangerously for a relatively short period of time through red lights and round the wrong way round a roundabout.”He added: “The aggravating feature of this case is the car was stolen from a domestic burglar a couple of days earlier.

“It’s worth £20,000. It makes no difference you bought it for £200 and intended to sell it for £500.”